by M B Reid
I spotted the scimitar too late. The giant was almost standing on it as he came towards me with single minded determination. There was no way I’d get in close enough to grab it before that thing could start swinging its club. And I definitely didn’t want to get in the way of that.
I checked back over my shoulder, trying to determine what I was being backed up against. The bare wall stood tall, just a few meters behind me. The bulk of the fighting was happening off to my left. The brute seemed to be merrily backing me into a corner. It wasn’t in any rush so I took the opportunity to pull one of the poison vials out of my pocket. I uncorked it with my thumb and downed the contents in one swift motion, careful to hide the colour in the vial with my hand. The guard that was trying to flank the brute didn’t need to see me chugging back a vile green liquid.
As the priestess had promised, my health skyrocketed. An icy coolness spread through me, breathing new life into my undead body. I felt refresh, and though I was unarmed at least I was going to be back at full health. The wall was close behind me now, and the brute continued to saunter forwards. It was confident in its ability to squish a little human like me against the wall.
I activated Chameleon Cloak once more. I was running before I’d even finished shimmering out of sight. To my right first, then once the spell fully settled over me I changed to sprinting straight towards the creature. The magic was burning through my mana so fast that I didn’t have any seconds to spare. I needed to make a beeline to the scimitar, and that involved running right past the brute.
That was a mistake.
When I turned invisible the creature widened its stance, planting itself solidly in place. It waited half a second, then wound up that massive club for a big circular swing. The chunk of dead tree moved in a huge semicircle in front of it, crunching against my chest.
I had let my shield fall as I ran, confident that my invisibility would protect me. I hadn’t considered the possibility that the AI was smart enough to attack where it thought my invisible character might be. The club knocked me sideways, sending me tumbling across the ground. My invisibility spell sputtered out. Apparently taking a hit was enough to disrupt the magic.
My health was back to forty percent. I was in pretty much the exact same situation as before, except now I was lying down on the job. As I was getting to my feet the other guard attacked from behind the creature, slashing at the tendons on the backs of its legs. The brute roared in pain and dropped to one knee. As the guard circled around him, trying to keep behind the giant, I downed another vial of poison. That meant I’d gone through two thirds of my health restoration, and we still hadn’t had a chance to do anything about the ritual.
With my health rocketing upwards I sprinted toward my fallen scimitar. The creature took a half-hearted swing at me as I passed, but I was able to dodge out of the way. The giants attention was clearly focused on the guard. The guard continued to assault it, striking and then retreating like a combatant in a guerrilla war.
I finally grasped my fallen weapon, just as a regular ratkin leapt at me. The creature knocked me sideways, and sent me tumbling into a grapple on the floor. Somehow I’d landed on top of it, with my shield pressed against its chest. I wrestled with its flailing forearms, struggling to pull my scimitar up to an angle that would be useful. After a few long moments I managed to point the tip of the blade at the creatures ribcage.
I drove the scimitar forward.
The ratkin bucked for a short moment, let out a shuddering sigh, and then fell still. I was back on my feet in an instant, running towards the giant and the guard. My weapon was back in my hand. The scimitars strength buff was powering me again. I watched, as if in slow motion, as the brutes enormous club crashed down on the guards unprotected skull.
The man sagged to his knees. His eyes were already vacant. The guard slid to the floor as the giant began to roar.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
My vision tunnelled into red as rage washed over me. This damnable brute had wounded Logan, and killed the guard that had saved my life. I shuddered to think how many others might have met their demise at its hands before we came along.
This all ended here. That guard was the last person this brute would ever be able to hurt. I poured the last of my mana into Bull Horns and rushed at him. Because he was standing still there was no backlash on me as we collided. My horns gored him, and my scimitar slashed against his thigh a moment later. I was targeting the leg that the guard had wounded, hoping that it would cripple him.
The beast punched me with its gnarled hand, knocking me away. It snarled as it did so, as if the punch had caused it as much pain as it had caused me. I sank into a defencive stance, holding my shield in front of me.
The giant was struggling upright, clearly favouring its one good leg. I let it draw itself up to its full height, trying to goad it into coming to me. Hatred burned in its beady eyes as it took a tentative step forward.
The wounded knee buckled and it sagged. I knocked at the beast with my shield, but without the mana to activate Shield Bash it was a disappointing strike. I had no idea how much health the thing had, but it looked severely battered now.
A cruel thought entered my mind, and in my rage it seemed absolutely fitting. I faked lowering my shield, as if it was weighing heavily on me and I couldn’t hold it up any longer. The beasts eyes took on the twinkle of victory as it raised its club to strike. I slashed my scimitar across as the club began to fall. It was a gamble, if I mistimed this by even half a second I would be mincemeat.
My scimitar bit into the creatures hand, cutting straight to the club. Claw-like fingers flew threw the air, propelled by a squirt of blood. The club twisted out of the brutes now useless grip and I only just managed to get my shield in the way to block it. The wood clanged against steel, coming to an abrupt halt. The handle continued continued on its path, flicking up over the shield and smacking against my shoulder.
My health dropped by five percent, but I was otherwise unharmed. The club clattered to the ground behind me.
The creature was glaring at me now, clutching its maimed hand with its disfigured one. The fight had gone out of its eyes. They had dulled, either from the pain, or an acceptance of its own death.
I stepped forward and hacked at its neck. The scimitar cleaved through to the spine, then stuck against the vertebrae. The brute struggled against the wound, trying to get away from the pain. I withdrew the blade and hacked again, screaming as I did so. This damnable creature was going to die now, this was my revenge for Logan’s injury. For the guard that had fought beside me. For existing in this terrible world where I was now stuck.
This time I hacked through its spine. The creature fell still. The clanging and yelling of combat faded into silence. For a long sweet moment I could rest, it was as if I were in the eye of the storm. My health and mana began to regenerate more rapidly. Then things began to take shape again.
The guards continued to fight around me. Rudy was leading a wedge-shaped contingent of half a dozen guards toward the centre of the ritual. Behind him the rest of the guards were trying to hold their ground against what seemed like an endless supply of ratkin.
I ran toward Rudy. I didn’t really have a choice. The chanting had reached a fever pitch, indicating they must be close to the end of the ritual. If we didn’t stop it in the next few minutes they were going to achieve whatever they’d set out to do.
It was time to put an end to this.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
I joined the rear of Rudy’s assault force. The six of them were cutting a rapid path through the ratkin defences, making a beeline for the centre of the ritual. The chanting of the ritual was unbearable now, I could scarcely hear my own thoughts over the high pitched squeaking.
Rudy reached the outermost circle of ratkin first. He slashed his way through with unbelievable ferocity. The guard behind him finished off the wounded ratkin, leaving a gap for the rest of us to run through.
As I passed through the openi
ng the entire ring of ratkin stopped their chanting. It was as if they were abruptly woken from a pleasant dream. The creatures shrieked and jerked around for a moment, then trained their eyes on us. Rudy was almost to the next circle when the group we’d just disrupted lurched into action.
I spun around and jogged with my back to the group of guards, watching for any ratkin wild enough to attack. I only had to fend off one crazed assailant before Rudy punched through the second ring of the ritual. That was when all hell broke loose. The circle of ratkin we’d pierced stopped their chanting and started screaming. Their voices were pitched higher than I’d ever heard, as if each was gripped by an insufferable agony.
The rats that were chasing us stopped beyond the second ring, pacing from side to side as if something was holding them at bay. Perhaps some latent magic was keeping stopping their advance, or maybe it was their own superstition. I decided their reasoning didn’t much matter, all that mattered was that they had stopped, leaving us safely within the second circle.
I turned back around. There were two more rings of ratkin separating us from the centre of the ritual. I was finally close enough to see what was happening in the middle of the room, and it caused my stomach to turn. There were eight rats at the innermost point of the ritual. Seven stood back to back, their arms were stretched wide and their eyes had gone milky white as they stared out at the room. In the middle of them all, raised up on a small pedestal, stood the scraggly ratkin that had murdered the woman in the church. The few clumps of fur that remained were covered in gore, a combination of reds and blacks that made bile burn at the back of my throat. Dark blood had crusted over the stump of his arm.
I normally had a pretty strong stomach, but there was something inherently wrong about the picture. Something was tickling the part of my brain that housed nightmares of eldritch horrors and lovecraftian fiends.
Rudy crunched against the third circle, coming to an abrupt halt. The rest of the guards slammed against an invisible wall as well. Only I managed to slow myself enough to stop before the unseen force could batter me. All six of them began hacking at the ratkin that formed the circle, ganging up on them three against one.
Two ratkin died in moments, and the invisible forcefield holding us back dissipated. The circle of rats ceased their chanting and began screaming, high undulating screeches of terror and agony. The roar was deafening. Somehow, impossibly, it was louder than the shrieking of the last circle. If the final circle was any louder I was sure my eardrums would burst.
We pushed onward. I had a strange feeling, as we ran, like I was the only one thinking about how messed up this situation was. The screaming ratkin all around us were frozen in place, the magic of their ritual seeming to have fried their minds when we broke through. A flash of concern washed over me at the prospect of breaking through the final circle in the ritual. What if that latent magic shattered our minds instead. What if we wound up just like these broken ratkin - screaming until our throats bled.
The guards began hacking at the ratkin in the final circle before I could voice my concerns. It was probably a moot point anyway - there was no way anyone would hear me over the screaming or the frantic chanting of those still standing. Two ratkin fell but still the rats chanted. Their actions seemed to be faster now, the words blurring together into a single booming voice.
I risked peering past the circle at the gathered rats in the middle of the room and the urge to vomit nearly overcame me. In the dozen seconds since I’d last looked, the eight rats had started to become one. The seven facing outward had pushed so close together that they had started fusing into a single organism. Their outstretched arms now locked around each other, and their very skin seemed to ripple and contort. Dark tentacles were moving under their skin, reaching for one another, reshaping their hosts to make a greater whole.
Rudy finished off the third ratkin in the circle and the room fell silent.
After the deafening shrieks and chanting the silence was crushing. It pressed in against the sides of my head, threatening to splinter my skull into tiny pieces. The other guards staggered as if drunk, leaning against one another to maintain their footing. It took a long moment before I realised that the ratkin in the innermost circle were frozen in place, so still they could be statues.
I risked a glance back over my shoulder. The circles of rats that had been screaming were all frozen in the exact same pose - heads back, mouths wide as they gaped at the roof. Beyond them the rest of the ratkin stood watching us. They seemed unaffected by the oppressive silence, and they weren’t frozen like the ones that had been part of the ritual. I thought I saw a few guards behind them, all that remained of our invading force, taking advantage of the distractions and dealing out murder.
The creature - for it was a single creature now - at the centre of the ritual rattled into motion. The mottled ratkin served as its head, standing a good eight feet in the air. The mass of bodies that formed the monsters lower half were still twisting and contorting, twitching with unnatural speed. It was almost like the entire creature was buzzing, as if it couldn’t remain in place for more than half a second.
“Kill it!” Rudy screamed.
CHAPTER FIFTY
All seven of us charged at the abomination.
As we neared it the creature began vibrating faster. Everything except for the head and shoulders of the mottled rat was a blur of motion. One of the seven rats forming the lower half of the body abruptly lurched forward. Bones snapped somewhere within the creature and beneath its skin dark tentacles of madness twisted and pushed. Flesh rippled as the abomination extended in our direction.
Rudy slashed at the creature, splashing black ichor across the ground. Its body crashed into his, sending him cartwheeling into the guard nearest him. The abomination withdrew its limb in an instant, slithering out of range before anyone else could hit it.
We formed a rough circle around Rudy and the other guard as they disentangled their limbs and got to their feet. I was nearest the beast now, holding my shield high in front of me. The mottled ratkin was chattering impossible secrets that slithered into my ears like ink. It seemed to recognise me from the church, and its face was contorted in rage. Flashes of dead things danced across my vision - a fox being devoured by maggots, playing out a thousand times faster than reality. This creature, whatever it was, was planting thoughts into my brain.
The abomination attacked again. Its blobby body elongating towards me like a viper strike. At the tip of this chunk of flesh and bone was the face of one of the outer ratkin. Time seemed to slow as I took in every terrifying detail. Its nose was split in half, forming the vertical slit of a maw above its regular mouth. Both were ringed with razor sharp teeth, as if the fangs from all of the ratkin had been relocated to this limb. The blind white eyes seemed to peer into my soul.
The limb struck my shield and pushed me backwards. The jolt knocked the poisonous thoughts from my mind. My boots were planted solidly on the smooth earthen floor but I couldn’t get any grip. I slid a few paces back, straining against the force of the blow. The guards on either side of me leapt into action, slashing and stabbing at the limb before it could retreat. Dark blood and chunks of flesh littered the floor.
In the moment of respite before the next attack the abomination started to chant. The words polluted the air like a smog, making my vision go hazy. It sounded almost like English, only the words seemed to be playing in reverse. This wasn’t the chattering language of the ratkin; this was something older. The language of demons.
“Fall back” Rudy ordered from behind me, and we all began shuffling away. The abomination started laughing, a high leering sound that taunted me. As soon as the chanting stopped the haze began to dissipate. Whatever it had been using must be a concentration spell. That meant we could keep it from casting again if we kept distracting it.
Rudy put a hand on my shoulder, indicating I should stop.
“You got a plan?” I asked.
“Stab it to death” One gua
rd suggested with a dark laugh. Black humour didn’t sit well on humourless NPCs. It was the sound of a man about to go mad.
“We go for the head.” Rudy announced. It seemed incredibly obvious once he’d said it. Everything died if you went for the head, right?
The abomination lurched again. Instead of extending a tentacle-like limb its whole body seemed to arch over, like a wave of flesh crushing forward. As its body rearranged to move its mass the mottled ratkin head jerked backwards and forwards. In a crude way it reminded me of watching someone who’d never ridden a horse trying to trot. The one armed ratkin seemed awkward and ill at ease atop its own body.
The monster rolled towards us again. Each wave of motion carried it a few meters. If we were to turn and flee we could probably outrun it. Though if we retreated there would be an enormous multi-bodied rat monster living in the basement.
“Charge!” Rudy yelled as the abomination reared back to rush forward in another wave. I led the charge this time, keeping my shield up in front of me. I didn’t activate any of my abilities. I didn’t want to rush ahead of the guards. We were safer staying in formation.
We reached the base of the monster as its wave of movement finished. The guards behind me had fanned out during our charge, so we met it as a wide wall. All of us started attacking wildly. I was splattered with black blood as I hacked into the mound of flesh. There were no distinct limbs now, just a blobby body of flesh that kept shifting and sliding.
The alien motion meant that no two strikes hit the same place twice.